DeeGee wrote:If you're so afraid of tidals and returns: use undeads and shades with Gafc SS and lose no SP whatsoever to anything.

Returns win because some Sp-efficient unit gets returned, then you spend 1 SP reviving something that didn't do a lot (or no) damage. Lather, rinse, repeat, and you're down 2-3 SP, which translates to one more unit on the field for the Falkow player, which when coupled with more agility means they're killing your stuff far more than you're killing theirs.

Don't get sucked into the return/revive lock and you'll be perfectly fine.

So you're suggesting everyone play one singular file because YOU claim it's the best counter? This is what is called a monopoly and it's the purest sign that a game has become imbalanced. You're accidentally indirectly saying returning is OP, you might want to change that statement before somebody forgets you're a return-lover.

I'm far from a return lover. But considering that the management just wants to endlessly push tribals on people, then, welp, I say **** that. And I'm going to run Dio until people forget tribals even exist. Alteil was fun back in the set 5-6 days, before it was "oh hey just put together all these units that give each other bonuses and plop away". Files were organic and put together based on synergy rather than "this unit gives bonuses to this other unit that shares a type with it".

But unless you're playing returns, you're going to have to actually deal with all those tribal bonuses. And sorry, I don't want to play that game.

DeeGee wrote:I'm far from a return lover. But considering that the management just wants to endlessly push tribals on people, then, welp, I say **** that. And I'm going to run Dio until people forget tribals even exist. Alteil was fun back in the set 5-6 days, before it was "oh hey just put together all these units that give each other bonuses and plop away". Files were organic and put together based on synergy rather than "this unit gives bonuses to this other unit that shares a type with it".

But unless you're playing returns, you're going to have to actually deal with all those tribal bonuses. And sorry, I don't want to play that game.

So now to summarize this post: You say you're not a return lover, but you singularly play Dio the heaviest variation of returning decks. You feel games where creatures have no synergy with each other and you just play random units are better. You hate having to actually play against opponents, especially those with synergistic decks, which is why you use returns so your opponent won't be able to play at all. I hope I didn't miss anything there.

I started with Gowen rush. I took Gowen rush to 2217 RP. Gowen got mega-hosed by errata. I tried playing Lawtia. MD augment got hosed by errata and the whole house built on her foundation collapsed. That'd leave Refess and all its refballs. Nope, not going to play those either.

So back to Falkow I go, and I'm staying there, until all the refballers put their "please let me set up so I can pwn you in overwhelming fashion" snowball dreck files away. Trust me, I don't enjoy playing this return nonsense. But all of the erratas left me no choice. Something has to keep those refballers in their place, and if they insist on trying their bonus stacking crap in Folrart, I'm going to return them into the abyss so that they'd get the message: stop playing snowballs, or I won't let you play.

DeeGee wrote:Trust me, I don't enjoy playing this return nonsense. But all of the erratas left me no choice.

One more person admits returning is OP. Though your principals clearly aren't that important to you, else pride wouldn't allow you to conform to using something you dislike. According to you, you should be in favor of the idea of eliminating returning, yet you aren't. This is hypocrisy.

DeeGee wrote:Something has to keep those refballers in their place, and if they insist on trying their bonus stacking crap in Folrart, I'm going to return them into the abyss so that they'd get the message: stop playing snowballs, or I won't let you play.

I have no way of knowing where all your Refess bias comes from and nobody will be able to if you don't give us your reasoning behind it. A strong dislike for creatures that support each other, but are useless alone isn't enough to warrant this degree of hatred. Once again I'll point out, it's difficult for people to take somebody serious who can't show any layer of impartiality.

Do I get this angry over elves or goblins, Muklas? Nope. Namely because they were aggressive in nature, and if their combo went off, you weren't subjected to a slow and painful demise. You just got slapped upside the head in one turn and proceeded to the next shuffle and cut. Plus, you can't really get angry over critter strategies in MtG when blue has a gazillion and one ways to return something, white can use Wrath of God (or whatever wipe all the critters out spell it has going currently), Black can murder them for next to nothing, and so on.

Now as for why I hate snowballs, Pikeru, the reason is this: because the games tend to be very boring. Either the Ref player never gets the snowball going, gets bent over by returns, by removal SSs, whatever, and just spends the whole game getting his units pounded into the dirt, or they lock in their snowball and their opponent just sees his or her field completely dying turn after turn after turn, whether it's thanks to SKs with super speed and lots of attack, or whether it's through bouncing off of a DF-stacked wall that EXLap and her army built up, or something with elements of both (mid ref/buncles), or TGC's zillions of HP. In any event, it doesn't matter what the actual "I have field dominance so you can just sit back and watch all your stuff do nothing but die" mechanic was, but it was basically a case of "oh hey, I locked in my snowball, and for the next several turns, you just get to watch yourself die".

And yes, I suppose there's a bit of hypocrisy going on in that Dion Control itself is a sort of combo file that aims to get field dominance and just make all of its opponents' moves useless, and also causes long games. But it isn't some sort of buff-your-attributes-through-the-roof-and-attack type of strategy. Yes, it's frustrating to lose to Diondora. But it's frustrating in the same way that it was to lose to blue permission strategies in M:tG, and I faced enough of those back in the day to be comfortable with them.

One major difference, MTG lets you play multiple cards per turn and they don't have to wait a whole round til they actually reach the field. I remember blue's biggest problem with goblins was the Piledriver's Protection from Blue. I'm not sure if Protection can be translated into this game, but maybe with a few adjustments. A few creatures have similar abilities like grim immunity, but not nearly enough. You can't compare return in MTG to here, in MTG it's a 1-cost instant that hits any cost of creature and uses up a card in your hand and you still don't hear as many complaints as this game gets. That shows that MTG is far more forgiving for this type of mechanic, for countless reasons. Here, your hand-size is always your entire deck, you start with a 25 card hand so you can afford a few here and there especially knowing you've screwed your opponent for at least 3 turns every time. You didn't even have to draw those Returns or Tidalwave, every copy is always in your hand, there's no luck factor involved at all. Perhaps counterspells are inconvenient, but at least it means nothing will ever run rampant. Here, when your opponent drops an openskill, it's impossible to respond, its effect is going through. Somebody just recently compared this game to Pokemon:TCG in that regard that when it's not your turn you can't do anything, but watch. Instants and instant speed effects are a very important aspect of MTG that helps balance the game, which just does not exist in this one.